Monday, 30 June 2025

Uniting Church Anniversary 2025

John 17:1-11


“May [they] become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them.”

The Uniting Church officially came into being on June 22, 1977. Some of you may have memories of the time of union. Some of you may have been at the old Milton Tennis Courts on that cold evening as the three churches came together.  This stole was worn on that occasion.

However, there are many of you who don’t remember because you were too young, or not born, or not part of one of the churches that came into union. I was only 8 years old at the time of union and have no personal memories of the event.

My father was the Presbyterian Minister in the small town of Quirindi in NSW at the time. He shared the story with me that the year before union the Methodist Church in Quirindi one Sunday morning walked out of their church, closed their doors, and walked around the corner to join the Presbyterians. I have always idealized this move in the country town when in so many other places disagreements occurred over properties and power sharing through the process.

At the heart of the decision was an understanding that unity was God’s gift and will for the church. This desire for the unity of the churches and the unity of humanity more broadly was drive by a response to the events of the two world wars that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. The talks about church union in the 1950s were part of a global response which saw the establishment of the World Council of Churches, the United Nations, and over 50 United or Uniting churches across the globe.

Union in Australia was far more than an act of ecclesial carpentry but a desire for a deeper faithfulness to what is expressed in Jesus’ prayer of John 17. A desire for unity within the church and more broadly among all human community.

Furthermore, rather than being trapped in history and sentimentalism, the Basis of Union, the document that drew the uniting churches together, was meant to inform our ongoing life. This morning, I am going to take us through four reflections on some of the elements that make up the DNA of the Uniting Church. Before we engage in these four reflections let us sing the song ‘May we be one.’

Song May we be one

The four strands on our DNA that I want to explore with you are:

  • We are people of humility.
  • We are reconciled people.
  • We are people seeking constant renewal.
  • We are people who have been sent.

As a congregation who declare that we are “Growing lifelong disciples of Christ” these 4 strands of our DNA should influence our journey.

We are a people of humility.

Firstly, we are people of humility. The words that we heard from John’s gospel this morning are a part of a long discourse which occurs during the last supper.  The pray of John 17 could be consider the pinnacle of this discourse in which we find the disciples at times confused and misunderstanding Jesus’ teaching. Decades early Paul had written to the Corinthians that we only ever glimpse God through a glass, darkly.

In the process of union the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregationalist churches recognized that none of them has responded to God’s love with a full obedience.” (Basis, Paragraph 1) This recognition of our unfaithfulness was shaped not simply by the understanding the divided church can only ever provide a broken witness but that that in coming together we had not arrived but were changing tack on our journey with God. Union was a confession of the problem of the division of the church and humanity as much as it was a witness that joining together was an act of faithfulness.  

The difficult of the moment of union was for those congregations who chose not to unite the act of union was a schism. In addition, whilst 3 traditions came together the problem of the ongoing institutional division of the church remained. To this end the Basis made the bold claim:

“The Uniting Church in Australia lives and works within the faith and unity of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Uniting Church recognises that it is related to other Churches in ways which give expression, however partially, to that unity in faith and mission.” (Para 2)

The word catholic here means universal and the word apostolic for the Protestant tradition refers to receiving the message of the first apostles who were sent out with the good news of Jesus death and resurrection. The Reformed Church theologian Miroslav Volf in his book After our Likeness argues that one of the marks of the church is its openness to other churches.

The claim that the Uniting Church is related to other forms of the church is a vital response to the notion that the church should be one. But, as long as the denominational and institutional divisions remain the capacity for witnessing to God’s love for us is marred. This is why Paragraph 2 has the sunset clause saying that, “The Uniting Church declares its desire to enter more deeply into the faith and mission of the Church in Australia, by working together and seeking union with other Churches.” (Para 2) Whilst the energy that lay behind the mid twentieth century ecumenism may have dissipated the question of church unity remains.

As people of humility the Basis has an echo of the need to recognize our imperfection in its final paragraph. It says, “The Uniting Church prays that, through the gift of the Spirit, God will constantly correct that which is erroneous in its life, will bring it into deeper unity with other Churches, and will use its worship, witness and service to God’s eternal glory through Jesus Christ the Lord.” (Para 18) We are called to constantly look into the mirror as individual persons, congregations, and as a denomination to reflect on what needs to change and be renewed. This understanding of the constant need for renewal ties back to the motto associated with the Reformed tradition, “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda," which means "the church reformed, always reforming". 

Earlier in the year I quoted an Aboriginal minister and Elder Rev Ken Sumner who reflected that he could not find his song lines in the Basis. In 2009 the Assembly accepted a Preamble to the Constitution of the Uniting Church which was a significant step to making space for the voices who were missing from the Basis. Recently, a book called The Present and Future of the Basis explores the formation document through the eyes of those who have come to be part of the Uniting Church on its church. Alongside the voices of Indigenous Australians are the voices of the migrant communities who have joined us.

As the Uniting Church we are called to be people of humility ready to hear God speaking to us through marginalised voices and as the Basis declares, “look for a continuing renewal in which God will use their common worship, witness and service to set forth the word of salvation for all people.” (Para 1)

We are reconciled people. (Paragraph 3)

In Jesus prayer he prays, “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” John 17:3 Through baptism we are drawn into Jesus’ life by the power of the Holy Spirit. We come to know God because in and through Jesus we are reconciled. 

J. Davis McCaughey in his commentary on the Basis tells us that the third paragraph of the Basis is “the most fundamental paragraph in the Basis.” Why? Because it speaks of what God has done for us in and through Jesus. It is the only paragraph which contained a direct quote from the Bible. It says that in Jesus Christ “God was reconciling the world to himself” (2 Corinthians 5:19 RSV). In love for the world, God gave the Son to take away the world’s sin.” (Para 3)

As a theologian it sometimes amazes me that the three churches were able to come together. The understanding of the good news and what it meant were vastly different. To bring together churches shaped by the contrasting theologies of prevenient grace and predestination was astounding. This paragraph did not completely desert these theologies but opened the way for holding Chrit as central. It reminds us, God in Christ has given to all people in the Church the Holy Spirit as a pledge and foretaste of that coming reconciliation and renewal which is the end in view for the whole creation.” (Para 3)

 At the beginning of the service, I played the 1977 Statement to the Nation which includes these words. We believe this unity is a sign of the reconciliation we seek for the whole human race.” (UCA Statement to the Nation 1977) Given the Uniting Church was a byproduct of what occurred at the beginning of the 20th century the importance of the message of reconciliation and love seems as pertinent now as ever as the Middle East appears to be on the precipice of even greater conflict.

 The claims made about Jesus and the reconciliation and renewal of all things are a deep gift to us. It is a paradox and contradiction that as human beings we have not celebrated this gift with greater joy. As Christians we should hear the message that through our own faith or doubts we do not add to or subtract from the reconciliation won for us in Christ. What we can do is seek to constantly witness to that gift of unity as we challenge the inclinations that break down relationships.

We are people seeking renewal.

Part of the response to being reconciled is that we receive this news with joy. Jesus prayed, “Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.” As we experience and encounter that joy our lives are renewed. And, as we recognize those places in which we encounter things which are erroneous in our lives we seek renewal.

This vision for renewal is grounded in the Scriptures as well as the first paragraph of Basis. The uniting churches “look for a continuing renewal in which God will use their common worship, witness and service to set forth the word of salvation for all people.” (Para 1)

The answer to the perennial question “Are we there yet?” is “No!” So, as we have heard there was a theme of renewal, at Synod. We celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit a couple of weeks ago and recognized the constant need for its presence to open us to the new possibilities of how we understand and express our faith.

Renewal is found in our response of lifelong discipleship and our capacity to respond to the good news. Again, Paragraph 3 of the Basis says, “To God in Christ all people are called to respond in faith. To this end God has sent forth the Spirit that people may trust God as their Father and acknowledge Jesus as Lord. The whole work of salvation is effected by the sovereign grace of God alone.” (Para 3) Trusting in God through prayer and reflection on the Scriptures is important as is our willingness to engage with the world around us. 

One of the legacies of the Reformation was the focus on the scriptures through the catch cry sola scriptura. However, those who wrote the Basis also understood the importance of engagement with scholarly thought. The said, “In particular the Uniting Church enters into the inheritance of literary, historical and scientific enquiry which has characterised recent centuries, and gives thanks for the knowledge of God’s ways with humanity which are open to an informed faith.” (Para 11) We listen with open hearts and minds to understand the context of the world in which we live and where necessary we are called to challenge the world as we seek to live differently.

One of the most difficult and confronting phrases that sits within the Statement to the Nation from 1977 challenges the heart of our consumerist culture. It says, “We will challenge values which emphasise acquisitiveness and greed in disregard of the needs of others and which encourage a higher standard of living for the privileged in the face of the daily widening gap between the rich and poor.” (UCA Statement to the Nation 1977) Our whole consumerist culture is built on teaching us to covet, to desire the things that we do not have and spend money on them. The question of discipleship and renewal invites us to contemplate how we live within economic systems which have a tension between who we are called to be in Christ and how we get along in our daily life.

We are people who are sent.

In being the church, we are called not to simply be disciples but apostles. Jesus prayed, “As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” John 17:18 A disciples is a student or follower, an apostle is one sent into the world to share what they have learnt. When I asked the question who are you seeking to help in their discipleship I am not simply speaking about people who come through our door but the people who we encounter in our daily lives.

One of my friends and colleagues at an induction service reminded the congregation that at the end of a service we are “sent out” not sent home”. To be able to engage with this world we need to understand this world and to find ways to creatively engage with sharing the message of Jesus. Paragraph 11 of the Basis invites us into this space as it says, “The Uniting Church thanks God for the continuing witness and service of evangelist, of scholar, of prophet and of martyr. It prays that it may be ready when occasion demands to confess the Lord in fresh words and deeds.”  (Para 11)

We seek to confess the Lord in fresh words and deeds ad we do so seeking to engage with and serve the world for which Christ died. To return to the Statement to the Nation it says, “In the spirit of His self-giving love we seek to go forward and will use its worship, witness and service to God’s eternal glory through Jesus Christ the Lord..” (UCA Statement to the Nation 1977) Putting our own needs and desires to the side we seek to find ways to help others encounter and know that the reconciliation of all things is a gift for the whole world to receive and live through.

To conclude today I want to share with you a fresh affirmation of faith written by my colleague Reverend Will Nicholas. It will be shown on the screen. As you watch it think about all that you have heard. What is God saying to you today?

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16UgpfuX7E/













Monday, 16 June 2025

Trinity Sunday Reflections

 Psalm 8, Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15

In John’s Gospel Jesus says of the Father and the Holy Spirit “All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Today is Trinity Sunday.

It may seem a strange way to start my sermon this morning but throughout the week whenever I began thinking about the Trinity I kept being transported into the hospital room as my mother was dying.

It is over a decade since I lost my mother but as she was approaching her last breaths I can recall a desire for prayer. Both my father and I are ministers but neither of us in this moment offered to pray.  

It is a strange thing to be present as someone dies and to contemplate your own mortality. How do we make sense of the eclectic experiences that make up our existence as we sit in the liminal space of our own mortality? On reflection I am wondering where God was in that moment.

That moment was a space of faith and doubt poignantly captured in a poem by Pádraig Ó Tuama entitled, ‘Do you believe in God?’

‘Do you believe in God?’

Though I've lost God, God is

The only language that I speak.

I need to describe this loss.

 

I thought he appeared

and disappeared. Now God’s

nowhere, though this loss

 

is like memory carried in a gust

of air, a scent. I make myself

describe what I have lost

 

with attention to the yearning

I still have. But I fear

God became a word

 

to bear all I could not bear.

God bore it well. No

containing now. An empty shell.

 

I have a need, or grief,

for what was never there.

I have lost God. God

is the only language that I speak.

 

The last line stands out echoing the poem’s beginning: “I have lost God. God is the only language that I speak.” ... God is the only language that I speak.

The poem addresses the ambiguity of our relationship with God. God’s complex and mysterious presence and silence through the rhythm of our existence. How do we make sense of this God to whom we have come this day to worship?

What names shall we call this God by?

Today is Trinity Sunday. And today we name God as Father, and as Son, and as Holy Spirit. The Triune God who is one in three and three in one. What sense might we make of this naming of God?

My mother was by her profession was an English teacher and she loved words and language. Any teacher might tell you that the way to explain something is to use an analogy. So, I have something in my suitcase that might either help us or confuse us.

My favourite analogy to explain the Trinity is to juggle. For me the pattern and movement of the balls is the analogy. There is this wonderful Greek word perichoresis which is sometimes use to explain the divine dance of the three person of the Trinity. But when the balls cease to move the analogy falls apart as most analogies do.

Most of the ones that we might try fall into one or more of the ancient heresies. Water which can be also or vapor suggests the heresy of modalism. This was promoted by Noetus and Sabellius. The sun in the sky which is the star itself, its light, and heat is a form of Arianism. Whilst a 3 leaf clover partialism – three segments composing a whole.

These attempts to explain the hidden nature of God all fall short and remind me of the writings of Gregory of Nazianzus the Bishop of Constantinople who was instrumental in solidifying the divinity of the Holy Spirit and altering the Nicene Creed. In his oration on the Holy Spirit, he declared of the Trinity:

“I have very carefully considered this matter in my own mind, and have looked at it in every point of view, in order to find some illustration of this most important subject, but I have been unable to discover anything on earth with which to compare the nature of the Godhead.” Gregory of Nazianzus (c.329 C.E. -390 C.E.) Fifth Theological Oration. On the Holy Spirit 380-381.

Attempts to domesticate the mystery of God’s life as Father, Son and Spirit always fall short. So let me offer three reflections from our three readings about how we experience God as Trinity, and which might help us to contemplate who God is.

Reflection 1 - Psalm 8

In Psalm 8 which we used as our call to worship we caught a glimpse of God who is the origin of all things, and the place God gave humans within the creation. It ties us back to the story of creation in genesis 1 and to The Nicene Creed describes God the Father with these words.

We believe in one God,

the Father, the almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

The Psalmist wrote of human beings, “You have given them dominion over the works of your hands.” There are been many occasions in recent years that I have posed the question in a sermon “so how’s this whole dominion thing working out for us?”

I was reminded about this during the week when I read about the interview between David Attenborough and Prince William reflecting on the state of the oceans. The Psalm gives us responsibility for the fish of the sea and whatever passes along the paths of the seas. Attenborough says in the interview, "What we have done to the deep ocean floor is just unspeakably awful. If you did anything remotely like it on land, everybody would be up in arms," The interview reminded me of the Ted Talk I watched in 2011 with Jeremy Jackson talking about the great pacific garbage patch. “How’s this whole dominion thing working out for us?”

This Psalm also inspired a poem

City Lights

by Peter Lockhart

 

When I look at your heavens;

the work of your fingers;

the moon and the stars that you have established,

 

I wonder why the number of stars

is diminishing:

the moon is not so bright

and the stars are fading...

...and disappearing

 

Thank God for the fluorescent stars,

stuck on my daughter's ceiling,

a dim and facile sign

to remind them of what is:

the wonder of your creation,

to which we are blinding them

with our city lights

and landscaped lives.


According to Genesis 1 God who is the author and origin of all that is created humans in God’s own image. Yet despite this we flounder when it comes to caring for all that God has made. As I reflect on my mother’s life, I treasure the memory of her love of nature and bird watching. The fragility of the beauty of the creation and of the preciousness of life that I was reminded of in my mother’s hospital room is countered by the hopeful question in the Psalmists mouth “what are humans that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” Here is hope that God cares for us even when we fail to care for what God has made.

Reflection 2 – John 14

The presence of the Holy Spirit in the world and her coming is described by Jesus in John when says, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”

But what is this truth that the Holy Spirit guides us towards. In the post-truth world, our relationship with the concept of the truth is strained. Whether we recognise it or not we are all philosophical heirs of the Enlightenment and its children modernism, postmodernism and meta modernism

Many of us are still caught in the trap of the modernist thinking that evolved into an unhealthy scientism which left no room for mystery.  It also shaped the way we began to read the Bible and led Christians into both literal and liberal ways of interpreting the Bible. In this world truth is objective, universal, and discoverable through reason, science, and progress. But for anyone who understands the philosophy of science we know that science is grounded in doubt and the drive to discover new insights.

The truth that the Holy Spirit leads towards is the crucified and risen one who is coming to us from the future and is in all things already. The cosmic nature of Jesus is described in the first Chapter of Paul’s letter to Colossians.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

On the one hand you could say that if you want to see God, look to the Christ who is coming to us from the future. Yet, you could also say that through the power of the Holy Spirit he is already with us everywhere. Aub Podlich invites us to be challenged by the irony of our attempts at seeing God in his poem ‘Ground, Air, Mother’

You want to see God?

Does a worm see the garden

in which it tunnels?

Do you see the air

you gulp into your lungs?

Does a baby see the mother

in whom he comes to life?

 

You cannot capture me

like a passing butterfly,

netted with the eyes,

pinned to a board of words

for every scale and spot

to be observed.

You can no more encapsule me

with words or pictures

or your very best intentioned

ideas of Me,

then you can net

the slippery waters of the sea

 

I am not One to be seen.

I am Ground to hide in,

Air to breathe,

a Mother in which to be born.

I am a Life to be lived!

See me?

Is it not enough

that I am One

who sees you

through and through?

As I contemplate the mystery of the coming Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit I am reassured that any sense of silence or absence in my mother’s hospital room was no less or more than the silence of God that Jesus himself experienced on the cross.

Reflection 3 – Romans 5

In the work of the great Reformer Martin Luther 500 years ago the importance of the words of Paul to the Romans cannot be underestimated.

“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”

There are a few key words here for us to think about in our relationship with God and with Jesus.

Grace, justified, sanctified, peace, forgiveness, repentance

"Christ died for us while we were still sinners" Romans 8

Consider these words from the Japanese biologist and theologian Kagawa Toyohiko

Transcendence and Incarnation

Takayama Chogyū taught, “By every means, we must not fail to transcend the present time.” To this statement, I should like to add the following, “Those who know the way of transcendence must know the way of incarnation.” This is the way to which the Kegon Sutra[27] points and the way taken by the carpenter of Nazareth. In the carpentry of the carpenter’s son scorned by gluttons and drunkards, there was no dream of separating labor and religion.

Neither fasting nor maintaining the purity rituals, he was friend to sinners and confidant to prostitutes, thoroughly stained by the dirt of everyday life. That was the way of his incarnation. As a criminal condemned to death, he thus took the downhill direction by dying on the cross. He whose end was a bloodbath of the flesh entered into the final religion. When the final word of the criminal condemned to die on the cross was spoken, the world and every last one remaining in it was drawn into God. (A Few Words in the Dark Kagawa Toyohiko)

This is good news and as I contemplate again the scene of my mother’s hospital room the faith which I have that draws me in is precisely this mystery. Beyond how I felt or thought, beyond what she was experiencing the miracle of God’s grace was present because in and through Jesus the world and every last one remaining in it was drawn into God, including my mother.

As I look upon the world on what is happening in the protests in L.A. and across the USA, in Israel and its new attacks on Iran, in Ukraine and Russia there is a senselessness and hopelessness. But Just like the ambiguity and liminal space of my mother’s room I contemplate the work of the God who we name as Trinity: through Jesus the world and every last one remaining in it was drawn into God

Today is Trinity Sunday. Any attempts at divine definitions fall away and fail before the mystery of who God is because God existed before we had a word for God and any attempts to name or describe God are inadequate. Paul wrote, “Faith is hope in things not seen”. but through some miracle of the Holy Spirit we glimpse God who has come to us in Jesus and receive the gift of faith which draws us forward to follow him.